


then came you (and i just knew)

by thanksforthecrumb



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, M/M, POV Second Person, bc i am also meme trash, there's a lot of vague death bc i am angst trash, there's also a nod to everyone's favorite farming headcanon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-22
Updated: 2015-08-22
Packaged: 2018-04-16 15:21:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4630242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thanksforthecrumb/pseuds/thanksforthecrumb
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"May we meet again," he says. You don't think he needs to say it. You will always meet again.</p>
<p>A collection of drabbles for Murphamy Week, day six: reincarnation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	then came you (and i just knew)

**Author's Note:**

> title from "I Just Knew" by Better Than Ezra.
> 
> i didn’t have time to finish the actual fic, so i kinda cheated and wrote a collection of 100-word drabbles instead. (the word limit almost killed me tbh.) it’s more soulmate!murphamy, i think. sorry. also, i'm pretty sure this is 100% historically inaccurate. yolo or whatever

_Egypt, 2647 BCE_

You’re tired and he’s in a rush, and you can’t tell whose fault it is when you collide into each other. You whip your head up to snap at him, but as his eyes meet yours you find the words dying on your tongue.

His mouth turns down in a self-deprecating grimace. “Excuse me,” he says.

You can only shake your head. “I wasn’t paying attention.”

He laughs gently, sending dark curls bouncing. Before he can respond, someone calls from inside the marketplace.

You’re reeling and he’s gone in an instant, and you wonder if you’ll see him again.

 

_Greece, 331 BCE_

He’s the pride of Sparta, and you’re a slippery little Athenian with a penchant for stealing. You steal necessities at first. Bread, water, meat. Medicine. (They said you’d never turn out to be more than your father, and maybe they’re right.)

You steal away, steal into the arenas, steal glimpses of him in all his glory. Son of Ares, some say. Struck by Zeus’s bolts. You have no words.

He is bloody and brutal and beautiful, and everyone is at least a little in love with him.

It’s your biggest project yet, but one day you will steal his heart.

 

_Rome, 121 CE_

You are too young to be a gladiator.

A tiny whimper escapes your lips, and for once you’re grateful for the roaring crowd. You try not to shake as you lift your sword, settling into defensive position. In that moment, the rage and fear inside you is enough to slaughter the whole colosseum. You charge your opponent, blood screaming louder than the audience.

He disarms you easily, something like remorse in his eyes. He stares into you, blade at your chest, as if asking your permission instead of the emperor’s. You swallow. The emperor gives his answer. The sword swings.

 

_Norway, 942_

He’s the boatbuilder’s apprentice, and you’re a farmhand. He works with wood, crafting sleek hulls, silent rudders. You pull turnips. He dreams about the raids. You’re happy with your goats.

“John,” he says one day, “if I built a boat, would you come with me?”

You laugh. “Maybe,” you say.

Some years later, he sails his ship to you. “John!” he cries. “Come with me!”

You hesitate. The harvest’s nearly ready, and you know you can’t leave. You shake your head. “Next time,” you promise. You repeat it to yourself, watching his boat drift into the fog.

It never returns.

 

_Scotland, 1353_

You’re the son of two dead debtors. Orphan, some people call you. Thief. Liar. Criminal. No one ever says your name. (You think everyone’s forgotten it, if they ever knew.)

Someone always has another name to call you by.

In a way, you revel in it. Your hands are clever, your mind sharp. You steal the bushel of red apples from right under the shopkeeper’s nose.

But you’ve gotten cocky. You run straight into Cadet Blake, and with the look he gives you, you can practically feel the cuffs going round your wrists.

He raises an eyebrow. “John, isn’t it?”

 

_England, 1582_

You join the guard on your fifteenth birthday. He’s nearly eighteen, waiting for you. 

Joining is easy; he’s the only thing worth missing, and he stays with you. Training is difficult. Muscles ache, hands bleed, pride shreds.

_He_ excels, climbing the ranks as you struggle. Eventually he says, “I’m to be stationed in the castle.”

“You’re leaving,” you accuse.

“We’ll see each other.”

_No we won’t_.

He leaves the next morning during your patrol.

You’re placed in the keep years later, and you find the boy who waited for you replaced by a knight who whispers in the princess’s ear.

 

_France, 1790_

Bellamy Blake stands at the head of the revolution. He’s become a leader of sorts, firm and confident in command. He launches into a speech, and you’re too proud to pay attention. As the men around you roar and load their rifles, he wades through the crowd to find you, grasping your shoulders when he does.

His brown eyes have always had a way of looking warm and fierce at the same time. His grip tightens. “Be careful, John,” he says.

You nod. “You too.”

It’s as close to “I love you” as the two of you will ever get.

 

_New York, 1969_

You see him in the crowd. Everyone’s muddy and happy and high. You are, too. But he walks in front of you, and your eyes can’t help but catch at his body, the stained T-shirt glued to his waist with all the rain. You yell, “Hey!” without meaning to, without even feeling your lips move. No one hears you. The music and the crowd swallows you up, so loud that you wonder if you ever said anything at all.

You forget about him until you go home, occupied with rock and roll and the bong your friends pass around.

 

_Massachusetts, 2011_

He’d been in your freshman English class.

Bellamy Blake, star athlete and all-around good student. (And annoyingly attractive, as if he isn’t perfect enough.)

He’d been in your freshman English class, the subject of all the poetry you wrote.

You’re both seniors now. He’s applying to Harvard and Dartmouth and will probably get a full ride. You’re still saving up for community college.

He passes you in the hall during finals. “Hey,” he says, friendly as always, “congrats on getting your poem into the newspaper.”

You smile weakly as he walks away.

You haven’t stopped writing poetry about him.

 

_Chicago, 2097_

They couldn’t save him. Tremendous advances in medical science, everyone says. But they couldn’t save him.

His body is cold and foreign beneath your hands, his head bereft of curly hair, of any hair. Every time his chest does not rise and fall, every time his eyes do not open, his mouth does not whisper your name, it washes over you like a shock of frozen water.

They couldn’t save him, and neither could you.

Your bones tremble, and as a tear hits the sterile hospital floor, you wonder if what everyone says about soulmates and past lives is true.

 

_Virginia, 2149_

You’re seventeen and he’s twenty-three, and that isn’t even the start of why you can’t be together.


End file.
